What did God really want from this commandment? Why was this so important to Him? How can we obey it today?

1. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.”
We have three questions to answer to day:
1. What is God saying here?
2. Why is He saying it?
3. How do we obey this command in our lives as Christians today?
( Basic questions to study the Bible: What does it say, what does it mean
and what does it mean to me)
What is God Saying
God was saying that He has both the will and the power to take care of
the Jews even in the worst of situations. When the Jews were the most
helpless and hopeless as slaves of Egypt for hundreds of years, God
took the initiative to rescue them.
In effect He is saying, “Look how much I love you! Now put away your
other gods and just trust Me to take care of you!
Why is God saying this?
1. Like every other commandment in the Bible, this commandment is
designed to prepare God’s people for massive blessings here on earth
and in heaven. The God of heaven is a ridiculously generous God and
incredibly loving God, a mind-boggling all-powerful God whose love
for people like us makes no sense—-but it’s all true as the Bible really
describes.
A good example of what you just said is the Exodus event through which
God fulfilled a promise in Genesis 15:13-14— 500 years earlier.
God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will
be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be
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2. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also
judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will
come out with many possessions.…
So the Exodus event was always planned by God to give descendants of
Abraham a nation who would inherit the promised land in one day for
Messiah the Savior of the world, Jesus.
But in order for the Jews to be a blessing to the entire world as God
planned, they had to obey the commandments of God. This was God’s
contract with them that we called the Old Testament. This first
commandment is the foundation fo that holy covenant God offered to
them to make them blessing to the whole earth.
2. Secondly, God gave this command because idolatry was the sin the
Jewish nation constantly struggled with. It was also the most serious
sin a Jew could commit. More than murder, more than theft, more than
adultery – – God was offended by the sin of idolatry more than any
other sin.
So, this command was designed to protect His people from offending
Him by giving them this commandment. He desperately longed for
them to succeed as His Chosen People to bring forth the Messiah, Jesus!
Example of Jewish Idolatry
In fact, just as Moses is receiving the 10 Commandments from God on
Mount Sinai, the Jewish nation is making a golden calf to worship at
the foot of the mountain. Such lapses into idolatry almost forced God to
destroy the entire nation and start over again with Moses. The entire
history the Jewish nation in the Old Testament full of such examples
choose trying to get help other gods.
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3. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
OT Jews worshipped our God and but many also worshipped other gods
on the high places—on hills near them. This practice is called
syncretism: the mixing of two religions, seeking the help of more than
one deity.
Religious syncretism is actually common for many Christians
around the world today. In many Latin American and African
countries, Christians go to church and then also to witchdoctors or
voodoo doctors. In more developed countries, there is another form of
religious syncretism that is more well-disguised: Freemasonry.
Membership in Freemasonry is a form of religious syncretism.
Most third degree Scottish Rite Masons are not told of its deep pagan
roots. They are deliberately kept in the dark about the toxic religious
cocktail of pagan beliefs that are woven into the other 30 degrees of
Freemasonry.
Freemasonry is a full-blown false religion complete with its own God,
its own religious ceremonies, its own ethical code and its own heaven.
For example, Shriners are high-level Masons who must take an oath to
“Allah, the God of the Mohammedans. If you want more information on
the religion of disguised religion of Freemasonry, I recommend a little
booklet online that you can find at dear-mr-mason.com
Why Is Religious Syncretism so Popular Among Christians?
The answer is easy: they believe that they need more help and they
think that help is not available from the God the Bible.
Yes—people want to get to heaven, but most of their lives is focused
on surviving and thriving on earth. People want their God to help
them and protect them in practical ways on earth. People want their God
to help feed their families, find a spouse, protect them from sickness and
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4. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
enemies so they can have a happy life. If one god cannot meet their
needs, they sometimes try another.
A dear friend of mine did that. He felt that his prayers to our God did not
work, so he asked the devil to help him. The devil responded and
ruined his life. In truth, my friend was not a born-again believer because
the church he attended made it difficult to know how to be born again.
So, my friend never really knew God back then. His church failed him
and so he thought his their God had failed him. He later got saved!
Some False Gods Actually Have Power To Help People
Some false gods had spiritual power to grant the wishes of those who
followed them because the gods were demons in disguise!
"They sacrificed to demons, which are not God, to gods they had not
known...," says Deuteronomy 32:17
A dramatic example of demonic power helping a plan king is in 2 Kings
3:27
When the king of Moab saw that the battle [against Israel] was
too fierce for him...he took his oldest son who was to reign in his
place, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. And there
came great wrath against Israel, and they departed from him
and returned to their own land.
This is why in India you see fruit and flowers late in front of statues of
Hindu gods. This is why the Jews in the Old Testament followed
Yahweh: to get their daily needs met and have hope for the afterlife.
This is why our Virginia colonial founders often sought spiritual
counsel by gazing at the stars as a form of astrology. This is why
thousands of people go to the Edgar Cayce Spiritual all center Virginia
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5. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
Beach all around the world. They believe that they can hear from spirits
will give them wisdom to help them with their life.
Of course, such help comes at a price: that demon can now influence
you to do what he wants: sins and evil!
Getting help from demons for any reason breaks the first
commandment. Tea-leaf readings, palm-readings, tarot cards, astrology,
new age healing, Reiki healing, communication with the dead—all are
forbidden to believers. God demands that they get their supernatural
help only from Him! Using these demonic resources opens a wide door
for demons to deceive and torment you.
So, in the first commandment, God is saying that just worshiping Him
in a religious ceremony is not enough. To be a true follower God
means that we agree to trust God alone for our needs and not some
other supernatural or spiritual source.
Final question # 3: How do Christians in 2018 obey the first
commandment?
So, we are not going to go to a witchdoctor. We are not going support a
false religion like Freemasonry by our membership. Great!
So how do we obey this first commandment to follow just the God
Abraham, Issac and Jacob?
With our hearts and not just our actions
As you know, in the Old Testament many of the commands against sin
were focused on human behavior such as to not commit adultery and
do not murder. In the New Testament, Jesus explains that because of our
closer relationship to God, our accountability to God goes beyond mere
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6. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
actions and instead is focused on what goes on in our heart. The Sermon
on the Mount makes this clear.
So, Christians can commit adultery just by what goes on in their minds
when they look at the opposite sex. Christians can commit the sin of
murder just by their words against others. In other words, standards are
higher because our covenant with God is so much better.
The Bible declares that to whom much is been given, much is
expected. The book of Hebrews goes to great lengths to say over and
over again that the New Covenant is much better than the Old Covenant:
better promises, better sacrifice for sins, better high priest, saved by
grace not by works.
Therefore, if God expected Old Testament saints to trust Him by their
actions, certainly God wants that and more in the much better New
Testament.
In short, God wants us to trust Him primarily for all our needs. He
demands to be Lord of all our lives, all our needs, all our problems. He
wants to be our heavenly Father, Savior, King, Master, Lord and Friend
24/7. He is satisfied with nothing less. He wants us to surrender our
hearts and minds to Him for everything:
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known
to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses
all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds
in Christ Jesus.
Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
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7. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I
tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one
of these.
NT obedience to the first commandment includes trusting God to
meet all our needs and not to trust more in something else.
If you want to know what god you follow, it’s the thing or person you
think you can trust the most to meet your needs here on earth. The
First Commandment tells us that if we choose to follow God of Abraham
Isaac and Jacob, all of our trust must be in Him.
As I have reflected upon this commandment in the way that I just
described, I know that I have failed to keep it many times.
For decades of my life, my knee-jerk response stress and troubles was
just to work harder so that I could fix the problem in my life. Of course
I prayed, but deep inside I was relying more upon myself than I was
on the Lord.
As God gave me grace to succeed in solving those problems by working
harder, I often unconsciously took credit for solving them by my own
efforts.
Those successes only strengthened my beliefs that I was mainly
responsible to fix my own problems and that while God might be
there to help me a little it was mainly up to me.
In short, my trust was more in my efforts, my abilities, my hard
work than I was in the Fatherly love of God for me.
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8. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
Our Strength is Our God
My response to life’s challenges is similar to what the Chaldeans relied
upon in the book of Habbakuk: the Bible says of this mighty Chaldean
army that “their strength was there god.” ( Habakkuk 1:11).
A Warning
I believe the Lord wants to warn us today that if we are not careful, we
can fall into the subtle trap believing that our ability to think well, our
wealth, our institutions, our politicians, our nation or our military is the
source of our security, prosperity and strength— rather than God.
America is not prosperous today mainly because of the wisdom of our
President. America is not safe from its enemies today mainly because of
its military might. God says in Ps. 127:1:
Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in
vain.
Beware of the Modern American Culture
America was started by Christian people who unashamedly spoke about
the Bible and God in everyday life, including in politics, schools and
workplaces. Presidents, judges, teachers, senators, businessmen—they
all spoke of God and the Bible with respect and admiration. They knew
America was great because America was ruled by biblical truths.
Today, our culture is almost 95% atheistic. Almost every movie,
almost every TV show, almost every newspaper page, magazine page
and webpage proclaims: it’s up to us to provide for our needs based on
our own abilities and efforts. God is irrelevant—if He exists at all.
I just watched an action movie last night. It’s my favorite kind of movie.
I love to see how people respond to dangerous situations, especially
when they’re willing to lay down their lives to save others.
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9. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
This movie last night was called Battle for Los Angeles: a few US
Marines repelling an invasion of creepy and powerful aliens intent on
destroying all human life so they can take our planets resources. I really
liked the movie, except for the usual unnecessary Hollywood sexual
remarks.
So, here’s the story: The stakes are enormous—the survival of all
humanity. The villains are tremendously evil and powerful: aliens with
much better weapons who are quickly taking over the planet. How will
the good guys respond? How will earth be saved?
As usual, no one in the movie ever referred to God or prayed to God
despite the fact that the survival of the entire world was at stake.
This kind of response is so common today that I would guess that most
Christians who watched that movie never thought about the absence of
God in the movie script. We sonnet expect it. That’s the problem. We
are allowing our culture to define reality for us in ways that denies
biblical reality that everyone needs God every day in every way!
We are enjoying movies, TV.shows, music, digital products and
newspapers that all tell us the same thing: God is not important to
anything in life—if He exists at all.
Our culture is slowing desensitizing us to atheism. It is defining life
without God and if we are not careful, we will unconsciously begin to
think and act like the Chaldeans “whose strength was their god.” We are
being daily marinated in cultural atheism.
This is why, I believe, so few churches have regular prayer meetings
as they did 40 years ago, most churches did it seems. We think we can
live our lives well enough without God’s help. A spirit of self-sufficiency
has crept into the church. We do not need God as much—after all—and
our culture makes us feel good about that.
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10. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
So What Do We do Now
As we get ready to remember what Jesus did for us this Good Friday and
on Easter, this is a good time to remember the first commandment with a
New Testament twist:
“I am the Lord your God, who saved you all from eternal death due to
your sins. If you really love Me, If I am really Your God, then trust Me
for everything. Pray to Me for everything. Don’t insult Me by trusting
something or someone more than Me. I am God. Treat Me that way
24/7 and I will bless you more than you could ever imagine in this life
and in the next!”
If God were here this morning, He might add: Please live each day in
close, constant communication with Me. Try using the books Jesus
Calling or Jesus Lives to get used to that.
Please soak your minds in my Word so you can think My thoughts and
know My will. If you do not, the foolish thoughts of the world will
slowly take over your thinking and you won’t even notice it.
Please honor Me with your full, complete trust to take care of you no
matter what the need, not matter what is happening in the world, in
politics or with your family.
I am your God. I will use everything and anything to care for you and
mature you so you can reign effectively with My Son in heaven one day.
With love—Your Father in Heaven”
Let’s Pray
Let’s Sing
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11. The First Commandment: What, Why & How March 18, 2018
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